Rage virus
The Rage Virus is a virus appearing in the 2002 film 28 Days Later, and in the 2007 film 28 Weeks Later. It also appears in the graphic novel 28 Days Later: The Aftermath. Background In the early to mid-1980s Britain suffered from endemic and large-scale urban violence, from inner-city riots in London, Birmingham and Liverpool, to widespread football violence between rival hooligan gangs that took place every Saturday at football grounds up and down the country. Finally, the disturbances that accompanied the 1984-85 miner's strike stretched police resources to the limit. The government began to fear a conjunction of serious violent incidents could overwhelm police and security forces and cause a permanent breakdown of law and order and a loss of confidence in the police to maintain order. As a result, the Ministry of Defence commissioned a research project that would initially explore the biochemical forces that provoke violent and aggressive behaviour in individuals, and ultimately examine the possibility of creating an anger and rage repressant to inhibit violent behaviour among large groups. In reality, the project was abandoned following a disastrous experiment when the scientists involved realised the potentially apocalyptic consequences of what they had created. The lab facilites were destroyed and all related documentation vanished. Although the scientists were subject to the Official Secrets Act, one of them, concerned about an eventual outbreak, leaked his story to a writer and these interviews form the basis for the fictional events of 28 Days Later in which the pathogen is released accidentally. Origin In the graphic novel 28 Days Later: The Aftermath, two Cambridge University scientists named Clive and Warren were trying to isolate the specific neurochemicals that cause anger and excessive aggression in humans in order to develop an inhibitor that regulates anger control issues. Warren decided that it was waste of time to experiment on volunteers from the school for the experiment because Cambridge students obviously didn't have uncontrollable rage. So he manages to get a contact at a police station to give him a violent criminal as a test subject. There was a problem with the delivery system. The injections were too diluted so Warren increased the dosage. However, the inhibitor still had no effect and when the test subject was about to attack Warren and Clive, Warren was forced to kill him. He then immediately decided they would experiment on chimpanzees, as Clive had been suggesting. As Warren and Clive were burying the criminal, Clive sneezed - giving Warren an idea. They had known that delivering widespread with a pill wouldn't do, neither would an aerosol. He decided that they should use a contagion as a delivery system. He located a certain genome in a strain of the Ebola virus. Using this new delivery system, the two exposed a chimpanzee to the inhibitor. However, the inhibitor mutated. In the chimpanzee, it had the opposite effect of what is was supposed to do. That is, it caused the chimpanzee to be full of uncontrollable rage. Warren had "created a rage virus." Clive was so disgusted by this that he quit. He later informed an animal rights eco-terrorist organization about the experimenting on animals and then shot himself. A group of those eco-terrorist would later break into the lab and free the infected rage filled chimpanzee. That chimpanzee attacked and infected them and Warren. From them, the rage virus spread throughout the island of Britain.28 Days Later: The Aftermath#Stage 1: Development Characteristics After the virus enters the characters' bloodstream, the virus would be usually very quick to manifest itself in the victim's behavior (see below), from the films it is shown that only 10 to 20 seconds is required for the virus symptoms to become noticeable though infection time is possibly determined by the amount of infected blood that has gotten into the bloodstream and the overall mass of the person in question. As the Human changes to Rage Victim he twitches madly in an almost Spasm Manner, this is a sad time for the human in hand as he cannot control the state he will live in or die as after the rage virus takes over his being. The virus can also pass through bodily fluids and has an almost 100% communicability rate, though it may be noted that some characters posses a hereditary immunity, allowing them to become infected with the virus without exhibiting any of its usual symptoms (save the bloodshot eyes). These characters remain carriers of the infection, and can transmit it through saliva and blood transmission. Danny Boyle has stated that in the films, primates are the only animals that can carry the virus (a fact that is further touched upon in the second film in the series)28 Weeks Later. Symptoms of Infected Characters The Rage virus does not directly cause the death of its host, but because the host is solely focused on infecting or killing the non-Infected it causes those infected to become disinterested in self-nourishment, which will eventually cause death by starvation. Since the virus causes those infected to act with no regard for self-preservation they will not act to evade mortal danger, such as fire or chemical gas. The Rage virus shuts down all parts of the host's brain except those that control anger, aggression and violent impulses as well as basic organ and muscle functions, movement and coordination. The Infected are reduced to an animalistic state of permanent hostility and aggression, driving them to attack non-infected with no concern for their own safety and no moral or other inhibitions that could control their actions and behaviour. In this state of permanent and extreme psychosis, the brain is continuously pumping adrenaline into the host's system, giving the Infected huge powers of endurance and super-human strentgh, but at the same time placing enormous stress on their metabolism, which alongside their disregard for their own safety, leads to eventual death through physical exhaustion, coma and/or starvation. The permanent damage done to the victim's brain, nervous system and vital organs makes a cure virtually meaningless since the extensive organ and brain damage would only leave the host in a permanent vegetative state or coma. The Infected experience spasms in the extremities, and their irises become blood red. They also vomit copious amounts of infected blood as well as violently gibbering, possibly due to their loss of control of the vocal cords. However in 28 Days Later, Jim comes under attack from a boy who, when being stood on by Jim, screams "I hate you!" at Jim. In 28 Days Later: The Aftermath, a character wonders how the Infected are able to track the uninfected down and know not to attack each other. After seeing them sniff the air he concludes that they are attracted by the smells of the uninfected, or maybe just able to smell something other than their own rotten flesh. Disease, anxiety, even rage affects the way people smell. In addition, the Infected have a very pungent odor. Even though the survivors hadn't bathed in weeks, they were still saturated with deodorants and shampoos. The Infecteds' sense of smell is how they find the uninfected.28 Days Later: The Aftermath#Stage 3: Decimation Carriers 28 Weeks Later explores the discovery that there are certain people who will not display any symptoms of the virus except for partially red sclera. These people are classified as "asymptomatic carriers." The person will not become uncontrollably violent like other Infected, and they retain their normal personality. The person is not immune to the virus, however, just the symptoms, and the person can spread the virus as easily as any other Infected (such as saliva contact). The Infected : See Main Article: ''The Infected The Infected are distinct from almost all cinematic zombies; they are not the revived dead. Also, films such as the ''Living Dead, Return of the Living Dead, and Resident Evil series portray zombies as creatures that desire to consume living flesh. By contrast, the Infected chase non-Infected with the simple desire to kill them in a fit of rage, NOT necessarily to spread the virus. This characteristic is seen most clearly when the Infected make the use of tools to aid their killing of non-Infected. For example, Don used Major Scarlet Ross's own rifle to beat her to death. For example, Don inflicted extreme pain on his wife (then beat her to death), by forcing her eyes into her head, which suggests some sort of thought process in the Infected. And while the Infected will attempt to bite their victims, it is usually as a means of either attack or to kill them (often by biting into the main arteries in their neck). They are not shown to ingest any organic material, apparently due to their disregard for nourishment. Another key difference is that the Rage-infected victims are still living human beings and as such can be killed using conventional weapons that inflict fatal injuries. The Infected still have the same level of mobility as they did before becoming infected. Both films have also demonstrated that they do possess a rudimentary sense of spatial awareness. In 28 Weeks Later, the character Don is also shown to be able to manipulate such simplistic objects as blunt-force weapons and was able to recognize his son just minutes after infection thus not being able to hurt him. Additionally, the adrenal gland of an infected person continually pumps adrenaline in to their system, allowing them to display extraordinary feats of strength, agility, endurance, and also to ignore wounds such as explosive amputation of limbs and immolation almost near superhuman.Director's commentary on the 28 Days Later DVD. References Category:Virus